Combination carrier and container



9, 1958 R. E. WARD 2,848,149

COMBINATION CARRIER AND CONTAINER Filed March 20. 1957 INVENT OR A RICHARD E. WARD ATTORNE United States Patent COMBINATION CARRIER AND CONTAINER Richard E. Ward, Kelso, Wash, assignor to Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Tacoma, Wash., a corporation of Washington Application March 20, 1957, Serial No. 647,364

3 Claims. (Cl. 22446) The present invention pertains to an article carrier and container, and more particularly to a carrier and container for small pieces of wood or logs. It has as its primary object to provide an improved and novel carrier which, at the same time, is attractive in appearance and has sufficient rigidity to serve as an article container in the home.

Various types of article carriers have been made in the past from flexible materials such as cloth, paper or from Wood slats connected by chains or wire cables. All of these depend upon the flexibility of the carrier and its ability to wrap around and conform to the load for their effectiveness. They have the disadvantage of requiring either a near capacity load for the carrier or an adjustment of the carrier capacity for the load. Furthermore, it is necessary to transfer the load to a container after transporting it to its destination.

The present invention overcomes these disadvantages by providing a new and improved carrier capable of securely holding and transporting various size loads and also having utility as an article container. This is accomplished by forming a body shell into an open end U-shaped trough with extended sides from a rigid sheet material and supporting it on shaped members having vertically extended reinforcing fingers. A carrying handle is centrally positioned on the upper edge of each extended side.

This carrier has been especially designed and developed for the holding and manual transportation of pressed sawdust fireplace logs. Since such logs are of more perfect cylindrical shape than natural logs and have very smooth surfaces, they tend to slide easily on each other and on other smooth surfaces. Accordingly, it is desirable and preferable that the inner surface of the sheet material from which the carrier body portion or shell is made be rough, so as to improve the grab of the carrier on the smooth surfaces of the logs, thus to minimize slipping.

Although primarily designed for the transportation and temporary storage of the said sawdust logs, the carrier has other similar utilities, such as the manual transportation and temporary storage of magazines, books, papers, and phonograph records.

The upper edges of the extended sides of the carrier are spaced suificiently apart so that a gripping of the handles for carrying effects a converging of the sides and the application of pressure to the contained articles. The supporting members on the bottom of the carrier raise the shell body portion above the floor when it is being or dislodgment from glancing forces without additional means of attachment being required for the supporting 2,848,149 Patented Aug. 19, 1958 ICC carrier and container having extended sides 11. At the upper edge of each side are handles 12, which are adapted to be brought together when in use as an article carrier, resulting in a converging of the sides of the body shell with attendant pressure on the articles being carried to assist in preventing load shifting during transit. As shown more clearly in Figure 2, the inner surface 13 of the body shell is preferably roughened to further assist in preventing movement of the articles. The supporting members 14 are shaped to conform to the base of the shell. One method of attaching the supporting members to the body shell is shown in detail in Figure 2. The reinforcing fingers 15 of the supporting members have vertical slots 16 which permit insertion into and around the base of the body shell having a similar size arcuate slot 17. The vertical sides of the U-shaped body shell then engage the vertical slots 16 of the supporting members to the depth of the latter. This type of support construction has the advantage of being selflocking and having a high degree of resistance tofracture member.

The supporting members 14, as shown in Figure 2, comprise a pair of vertical and oppositely disposed arms 19 connected by a bridge member 20, the bottom of which provides the resting surface or the feet of the support. The slot 16 is of just sufficient width to accommodate the thickness of the vertical side walls of the body shell in tight locking relation. As shown in Figure 2 the said slot 16 divides the vertical arms 19 into two reinforcing fingers 15, one of which when assembled is contiguous with and vertically disposed along the outside surface of one of the Vertical legs of the U-shaped body member, while the other is contiguous with and vertically disposed along the inside surface of the same vertical leg of the body member. The shape of the supporting members may be modified so as to eliminate the inside fingers 15 of each arm or so as to make the inside fingers shorter than the outside fingers, if desired.

When the upright portions of the sides 11 tangential to the curve of the U are fully recessed into the receiving slots 16 of the reinforcing fingers 15, a portion of the bridge 20 of the supporting members 14 protrudes through the arcuate slot 17 cut in the bottom of the U-shaped body shell to form an end wall member 18 on each end of the carrier. When logs are being transported in the carrier, these end wall members 18 serve to further contain the bottom log and to prevent particles that may become dislodged from the log from falling out the ends of the carrier.

It is readily apparent from the illustrations and drawings that many changes and modifications can be made in the structural details and materials of the carrier.

Various rigid sheet material such as brass, copper, steel, leather, rubber and resins may be used to form the body shell dependent upon the esthetic and economical values desired. For the carrier illustrated in Figure l, a preferred sheet material is that known as hardboard or fiberboard. Such boards are made by consolidating felted fibrous mats under heat and pressure. In certain consolidating processes one surface of the mat is adjacent to a screen giving the resulting fiberboard a roughened or screen side. This type of board is preferred to that which is smooth on both sides so that the screen side may be used as the roughened inner surface. When using other and are stapled to the top portion of the vertical sides 11 of the carrier. The supporting members may be made of plywood, hardboard, pressed wood particle board, lumber, molded resins, metals, or other suitable materials. The reinforcing fingers may be positioned so as to extend from any point intermediate of the point of tangency of the base and sides and the upper edge of the sides of the body shell. v

It is to be understood that the form of the invention herein disclosed is a preferred example of the same, and changes in size and arrangement of parts may be made without departing from the scope of the invention as herein claim'ed.

I claim:

1. A carrier container comprising as a body member a rigid sheet material formed into a U-shaped open end trough; a pair of supporting means each consisting of two oppositely disposed vertical arm members comprising a generally vertically extending reinforcing finger contiguous to the outside surface of the body member and connected by a bridge member through an arcuate slot formed in the curved base of the said body member; and a handle centrally positioned on the upper edge of each' side of the body member.

2. A carrier container comprising as a body member a rigid sheet material formed into a U-shaped open end trough; a pair of supporting means each consisting of two oppositely disposed vertical arm members each contiguous to an outside surface of one of the vertical legs of the U-shaped body member and a bridge member connecting the two vertical arrn members through a slot formed in the curved base of the body member adapted to receive said bridge member in such manner that it forms a wall across each end of the U-shaped trough; and a handle centrally positioned on the upper edge of each side of the body member.

3. A carrier container comprising as a body member a rigid sheet material formed into a U-shaped open end trough; a pair of supporting means each consisting of two oppositely disposed vertical arm members slotted in a vertical direction adapting them to receive the vertical sides of the U-shaped body member and provide on each side of the U a pair of vertically disposed finger supports contiguous respectively to the outer and inner surfaces of such side; a bridge member connecting the two vertical arm members through a slot formed in the curved base of the body member adapted to receive said bridge memher in such manner that it forms a wall across each end of the U-shaped trough; and a handle centrally positioned on the upper edge of each side of the body member.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,722,664 Frenning July 30, 1929 1,971,322 Miller Aug. 21, 1934 2,593,077 Vogt Apr. 15, 1952 

